Phish Phans Phuming Over Ticket Scalping

Fans of the jam band Phish have agreed to spend hundreds, even thousands, of dollars to see their favorite group rock out at the Hampton Coliseum in January.

A completed Internet auction on eBay.com shows that one buyer promised to pay $4,245 for a pair of tickets to the band's Jan. 2 appearance, the first of a sold-out three-night stand.

That's not typical, but tickets to the band's Hampton performances regularly fetch top dollar online, where tickets with a face value of $39.50 have sold for $200 to $400 each.

Who's paying the inflated prices? Josh Boyette, a junior at the University of Pennsylvania, visited eBay and agreed to fork over $315 for a ticket to the Jan. 3 show. So far, transactions taking place outside the city limits haven't been subject to Hampton's anti-scalping law.

It will be Boyette's first time seeing the band. "I feel I was gouged ... but I really want to see the show," he said Friday. "They went on hiatus before I realized how good they are. So I've been planning for this comeback for some time."

The Internet sales infuriate local Phish followers who came away with no tickets. The Hampton concerts sold out in less than an hour Sept. 21.

Bob Wharton, owner of The Crab Shack restaurant in Newport News, said he knew of hundreds of people who tried to get tickets. Only three or four of them succeeded.

"It's pretty upsetting," said Wharton, a Phish follower for nearly a decade. He's seen the band as many as 30 times, including a memorable Halloween concert in Las Vegas. "It being your back yard, your hometown, and not being able to get ticket -- that's frustrating," Wharton said.

"My opinion is that broker companies were picking up a lot of the tickets, and the local consumer was not able to get them. I was calling on two telephones, and I couldn't even get a busy signal most of the time, just a recording. Nobody could get through."

As an anti-scalping measure, tickets were sold through Ticketmaster's telephone system and Web site only.

Management for the band didn't return phone calls. Questions posed to Ticketmaster weren't answered. But Joe Tsao, director of the Coliseum, said the ticket-selling system seemed to have worked.

"Ticketmaster says there was no system failure, in any way, shape or form," Tsao said. "Nothing tells me that there was any wrongdoing or a system failure for me to pursue. And yet, people are venting their anger on me."

Tsao said one local investment banker wrote him a nasty letter.

"His accusation was, 'I live here, so I should have a right to tickets. It's stupid of you to go on sale with an event for which I can't get tickets.' "

A number of factors combined to create demand for the Phish concerts: On New Year's Eve, the band will return from a two-year break to play a concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Phish -- for years, one of the nation's most popular live acts -- then goes to the Coliseum for three shows. No other concerts have been announced.

Tsao said the Phish organization took commendable steps to keep tickets away from brokers or professional scalpers.

Concert promoter Ken MacDonald agreed. "No band works harder to make sure that the tickets get into the fans' hands than Phish," he said. "They work very hard. It's our goal, too."

None of that makes ticketless fans feel better.

"It just seems strange that nobody we know got any tickets, and yet, people online have extra tickets they are selling for $1,000 apiece," said 25-year-old Angela Schroeder, a Newport News "Phish head."

"It just doesn't seem right."

Sam McDonald can be reached at 247-4732 or by e-mail at smcdonald@dailypress.com